


moonrise, sunfall

by luway



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: #dead detectives, (at times), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Asshole Minho, But it's because they work as soul reapers so it's chill, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Romance, Everyone is Dead, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Minho has a heart, Partners to Lovers, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Sweet Boy Jisung with a Tragic Past TM, The Undead Detective AU no one wanted, Worldbuilding, also this is meant to be confusing so be warned, it's a concept, kind of, no huge chunks of text tho, some gore but it's minor, youll learn as you read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-07-28 00:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20055361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luway/pseuds/luway
Summary: “Do you remember how you got here?”“No,” Jisung rasps, throat still burning from all the water that came up, and out of the corner of his eye he thinks he sees the flash of red and blue lights, yet somehow there’s no sign of them on the face of the man who pulled him out of the water. Just a look of pensive understanding, and dark eyes.“Do you know why you’re here?”There’s a long period of silence, before Jisung shudders and nods.“Because I died.”





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Important Note*
> 
> FIRST OFF: the rating is because there will be some scenes of the boys dying, as that is a part of the fic
> 
> Second: Welcome to a new thing I'm trying out! What's being posted right now is just a little prologue teaser thing(?), but I'm hoping to get the next part out soon, probably in the next few weeks. 
> 
> Other than that there's not much to say, besides the fact that this au is going to be lighthearted and fluffy most of the time, but it's gonna deal heavily with death, as everyone is, well, dead. I honestly might just be confusing myself more than anyone else, but whatever. They're all ghosts, souls, dead as a door nail, okay?
> 
> Okay have fun reading!

☼ 

When Jisung dies, he wakes up like all the rest. 

Everything is dark, and cold, and somewhere in the far off distance he can hear a something like a faint yelling, but everywhere he looks all he can see is darkness. For a moment he flails, struggling to make sense of what Was, until finally, after what seems like forever, he feels the ground under his feet, and kicks up as hard as he can. In a split second he breaks through the surface of the water, coughing and sputtering as he searches for any sign of shore.

It takes a moment, but he eventually finds it in the peripheral of his blurry vision, a strip of dark grass leading away from the river Jisung has found himself in.

His muscles burn as if he’s been swimming for hours, rather than what seems to have only been a few moments. Water crests over his head, which is barely above the surface, and the cold dark rapids threaten to drag him down again as they cling to his already waterlogged clothes. He takes his hands through the water, and kicks as hard as he can, but he isn’t sure if he’s even making progress when the shore doesn’t seem to get any closer.

“Hey, c’mere.” A gentle voice breaks through Jisung’s struggles, right as he feels like he's reached his limits. He's still too far from the shore to make it on his own, and he can feel himself slipping below the surface again, but there's all the sudden a pale hand coming into view, a hand that Jisung grabs and holds onto like a lifeline. 

Funny, seeing as he would soon learn that this would be his first contact with a Soul Reaper. 

“Easy, take deep breaths. Sheesh, you got a violent pass over, didn’t you.” 

The reaper speaks softly, muttering under his breath, and rubs Jisung’s back until he’s no longer gasping for air, and the panic that clouded his vision finally subsides one he realizes that somehow, he has solid ground beneath him. 

“What?” Jisung chokes out, looking around to find himself standing on the bank of a dark swirling river. Beside him stands a stranger with blonde hair, and a calm smile that somehow manages to slow Jisung’s heart as it races in his chest. Every piece to the suit the man wears is black, so dark he almost blends in with the shadows—or he would if he weren’t so pale. 

“Do you remember how you got here?” The man asks him, his hand a steady pressure on Jisungs shoulder, but strangely, a welcome one. Jisung doesn’t even realize he's leaning into the touch, until the man wraps his arm around Jisung’s in a comforting gesture. 

“No,” Jisung rasps, throat still burning from all the water that came up, and out of the corner of his eye he thinks he sees the flash of red and blue lights, yet somehow there’s no sign of them on the face of the man who pulled him out of the water. Just a look of pensive understanding, and dark eyes. 

“Do you know why you’re here?”

There’s a long period of silence, before Jisung shudders and nods. 

“Because I died.”

The man hums, Jisung isn’t sure if it’s to affirm what he said, or something else. He’s not sure how he knows, but there’s a hollow ache to his bones, and a numbness to his fingers and toes that tell him he was under the water for a long time. He thinks he hears the sound of emergency sirens behind him, but everything but the sound of the water rushing behind him and the mans voice sounds like it’s being spoken through several layers of cotton, like the other side of the river is miles away rather than a good stones throw away. 

He wants to look, but the man pulls a thick blanket out of nowhere and wraps it around him, the thick grey wool surrounding him in warmth, and Jisung clutches it around his still shivering form on instinct. For the first time he looks down, and he sees that he’s wearing normal clothing, not counting the fact that it’s all water logged and torn up. He stares at the deep blue of his shirt and thinks for a moment that it might be his favorite, but he’s not quite sure. Both of his knees are scraped, and he only has one shoe on, and it’s already falling apart. 

“My name is Chan, I’m going to be your Guide, do you understand?”

“I think so,” Jisung nods, blinking away a stray drop of water that came from his hair. It hangs in ribbons, hanging in front of his eyes like a curtain. “You’re gonna help me pass over?”

“You made it through the worst part on your own, but yes. I’m here to help.” Chan nods, and Jisung notices that Chan’s eyes keep flickering between him and something behind him, expression unreadable as his jaw tenses. 

Somewhere far away, through the faded noises poking at Jisung’s consciousness, Jisung thinks he hears someone yelling something he can’t make out. He’s tempted to look, but something deep and heavy in his heart tells him not to, that he’ll see far more than the other side of the river. He’ll see something that he doesn’t want to see. 

“If you turn around, you’ll get all your memories back.” It’s as if Chan knows what Jisung is thinking, and the fact that Jisung was right, causes a chill to run up his spine. 

“And if I don’t?” 

“That’s up to you.” 

After that Chan is silent, taking a step away from Jisung, further away from the rush of the river still going on behind him. From the far off yelling Jisung thinks might just be in his head, but he knows it’s there, and if he looks back he’ll see something awful. 

He glances down at his knees, and his one lonely socked foot, and presses his lips together. 

As soon as he takes a step towards Chan, the shadows bleed away, and the dread that had been hanging on Jisung’s back since he came back to consciousness does the same. He’s all of the sudden completely dry, and when he looks down his clothes look mostly the same, only they’ve all been bleached of color, and they’ve all been mended. He even has both shoes back. 

He looks up to see Chan standing there with a warm smile on his face, wearing the same suit, but no longer with the perfect tie or the jacket. In fact, a few of the top buttons are undone now, and his sleeves have been rolled up. 

Chan looks comfortable for the first time as he gives Jisung a polite bow. 

“And that, was the _ hardest _part. Welcome to another life, Han Jisung.”

☽


	2. who said being dead was easy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cheat sheet:
> 
> Here - the plane where souls exist  
In Between/Nowhere - kinda like purgatory. where ghosts live. neither Here nor There  
There - the plane where the living exist

Six Months Later

☼

Jisung fusses with the cuffs on his suit jacket as he waits, boredom eating away at him. He’s been sitting here for almost four days now, with no sign of anything. He’s almost starting to doubt that this job is even real, more like a clever ruse to get him out of the office. Jisung really wouldn’t be surprised at this point, seeing as his partner seems to resent everything about Jisung, even though they’ve barely had a conversation with each other since Jisung was placed in the precinct almost a month before. 

Chan said that Jisung’s new partner would grow on him. Something about him needing time to adjust. 

It sounds funny when Jisung thinks about it. That the one who’s been dead for less than a year needs to give _ other _people time to adjust to the situation. 

Truthfully Jisung hadn’t found himself in need of much adjustment. There’s not much of anything he remembers from when he was alive, so the transition period of moving into this afterlife business is less of a transition and more of, well, he really doesn’t know what to call it does he. 

Jisung isn’t quite sure if he’s missing anything important, or if anything from his past life would really matter. Not to mention that whenever Jisung asked about his memories Chan and Changbin would always brush the question off, almost as if they were nervous or uncomfortable. So does he _ really _ want to know?

Besides, now that Jisung has been in his new life for a few months, he isn’t sure if he really wants to remember. Not when things seem to be going pretty well. 

If you ignore his work troubles. 

Currently, Jisung is staying in the spare room Chan had in his apartment—something that Jisung has been told isn’t protocol, but Chan is apparently high up enough in the ranks of his job that he could pull a few strings and make it possible. So instead of moving into a housing unit with a bunch of other souls who couldn’t remember anything about their lives besides their name, Jisung found himself moving in with his own Guide, and Chan’s roommate, another Reaper, Changbin. 

It’s all good and well enough, as a matter of fact, Jisung can’t wait to finish this assignment and get back (hopefully in time for pizza night).

Chan says it’ll happen on Friday, but Jisung has no idea when Friday is. Not while on an assignment like this one. 

Time works differently when on the job, at least for Jisung. He sits at the table under the cafe awning for days, but it feels like nothing more than ten minutes to himself. The people who walk past him don’t bother looking at him. It's not like they're moving faster than normal either. Jisung just watches them go through their week like it’s nothing, notices the same young woman rush past him four times in a row periodically, unsure of whether it happens over the course of one day or one for each day he sits here, waiting. 

One blink and hours go by, but Jisung sees it all in real time. 

It’s an easier job than his partner is stuck with; actually finding the SOL and herding it to the pickup site without it knowing, where it should have passed over in the first place. Accidents happen though, Jisung has been taught enough to know that. 

When Jisung died, he was able to make the first part of the journey from There, to Nowhere, where he met his Guide (Chan of course) to take him to Here. 

It’s all very confusing, but Jisung finds that the longer he spends Here, the more the lines of ‘this’ and ‘that’ blur in his own understanding of how the new world works, and things don’t seem so confusing anymore. 

He’s not sure whether that’s a good, or a bad thing. 

Jisung doesn’t have much time to think about it, however, because when he next looks up it’s Now for the first time in what seems to have been a long while. The world becoming whole once again, so fast that Jisung’s brain barely has time to notice the difference. 

He sees him though, the SOL.

Strangely, the SOL isn’t much younger than him, or at least as young as Jisung had been when he died. Blonde hair blown back in waves, like when you drive in a convertible car and can’t control what the winds do to your hair. 

The nice knit sweater he wears is torn right below his rib cage on the left side, and Jisung has to keep himself from staring at the dark reddish brown stain surrounding the tear, or the bruising on his arms that even from Jisung’s distance is still painfully obvious. 

The SOL’s eyes are dark, questioning, almost desperate and a little crazed as he and Jisung make eye contact across the courtyard. Jisung probably being the first person to acknowledge his existence in weeks. 

After all, the dead are invisible to all but their own kind. 

The SOL looks like he wants to run, eyebrows knit together with worry and so many unanswered questions. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s fallen right into their ‘trap’, and even though Jisung knows the outcome will end up with the SOL in safe custody with people who he can speak to and finally interact with, he can’t help but empathize with the emotions that must be crashing through the kids head right now. Muddled and missing important pieces that will tell him _ Why _. 

Why is he here, Why won’t anyone speak to him, Why is it like he suddenly doesn’t exist?

Jisung walks straight ahead, not worried about bumping into anyone or anything as he goes, hands in the pockets of his woolen coat. Because somehow even though Jisung is dead, he can’t manage to control the cold that rips through him at odd times. Side effects of being newly departed he supposes. 

He’s getting off track though. 

Jisung stops when he’s a few paces away from the SOL, a familiar ache in his chest when he and the SOL make eye contact. He stands just a few paces away from the SOL, who hasn’t moved since they saw each other from across the street. 

“Do you remember how you got here?” 

The SOL’s expression goes from relieved, to shocked, to blank, and then confused once again. He shakes his head, _ No _. 

Jisung presses his lips together thoughtfully, as if he was expecting any answer other than the one he was given. 

“Who… Who are you?” The SOL asks, voice much deeper than Jisung was expecting, but with that hint of broken desperation and fear in it that reveals how young the boy still is. “I’m supposed to be on my way home, but… It’s strange here, I don’t like it. I just watched the sun go down past the buildings, but I blinked and it looks like it’s noon again, I don’t understand.”

Jisung knows for the SOL that the two weeks, almost three he’s been wandering must have felt much longer, or perhaps it had only seemed to have been a few muddled seconds since the moment his soul left his body. 

Time is an odd thing In Between. One hour could feel like years, three weeks could feel like seconds. 

Jisung can never be sure with SOL’s, as they’re all so different. He supposes that’s why they’re called that. SOL’s. Souls On Layover. It was a laughable term when Jisung first heard it, a play on words for Souls. But a few jobs in, and he began to understand. 

It’s always the souls with the most violent deaths that end up this way, not quite finding their way to Nowhere. Caught in the In Between. This odd layer of purgatory and lost souls that exists like the filling between Here and There. 

Jisung was one of the lucky ones who made it through. 

“Please help me, I don’t want to stay like this.” The SOL’s voice is pleading, desperate, and Jisung’s heart aches for the boy.

“I know,” Jisung says in a soothing voice, a placating smile on his face. “You won’t be here for much longer. I’m here to be your Guide, to help you.”

“You promise?”

The SOL looks so young and vulnerable when he says it, and Jisung feels his smile grow more confident, even though his heart feels heavy. This is his job now though, helping the lost ones find their footing so they can get out of this Nowhere.

He holds his hand out as he nods, “I promise.”

Every SOL is different in these situations, Jisung realizes with each job he takes. Some don’t trust his hand, but as soon as they make the decision to come with him they find themselves Here already. Some take the hand, and break down at the first solid touch they’ve felt since the moment they died. 

Jisung has never had a SOL run into him like this one does though, hitting Jisung’s chest with such a solid force that Jisung is sure if he still needed to breathe the impact would have left him sputtering for air. 

It’s strange to hold the trembling form of a kid who can’t be much younger or older than himself, even stranger when Jisung remembers that neither of them are alive, but Jisung wraps his arms around the boy comfortingly. He closes his eyes for a moment as he pulls them out of the In Between, into Here now that the SOL is in custody. Just like Chan did when Jisung chose to follow him. 

“Lee Felix, welcome to Here.” 

A familiar voice speaks, and Jisung opens his eyes to see the plain white and cream colored room of the SOL Ward. His Partner in Shining Armor is waiting for the two of them by the door, in his perfectly pressed forest green blazer and dress pants. Black leather loafers that don’t have a single speck of dust on them, as if Jisung’s partner would ever allow such a thing. 

Lee Minho. Han Jisung’s Partner, previously Supervisor. Though with the way Minho treated him you wouldn’t notice much of a difference between the two.

“Do you know why you’re here?” Minho asks, tone gentle as Jisung coaxes Felix out of the death grip he’s placed on Jisung, and Minho wraps the kid up in a thick blanket and instructs him where to sit. 

Jisung notices now that Felix’s hair has returned to what Jisung assumes to be its normal fluffy style, the clothes Felix wore mended and bleached of their previous color, of the stain below his ribs. His eyes are more clear now that his soul is on the right plane. 

The confusion won’t wear off for a few more hours at most, but until then Minho will help Felix get used to what life will be like Here.

“No, I mean… I think—I think I know, but that can’t be right. Can it?”

If he had any other partner, Jisung might’ve glanced over, looking to see if there was any reaction in Minho’s gaze. 

Alas, Minho has been like a statue throughout their now almost two months of working together. The only time he ever showed any hint of emotions being during times like this where they were helping a SOL. Honestly, Jisung sometimes wonders how Minho got into Here.

If they weren’t souls themselves, Jisung would joke and say Minho didn’t have one. He’s still holding out on his theory that Minho is secretly a natural ginger or something. 

“The memories will come back to you the longer you spend Here. There likes to scramble up your senses, memories, how you perceive time. Takes more control the longer you spend there, but you’ll be fine. No worries.”

“Oh… Uh, where am I exactly?”

“You’re Here. The afterlife if you’d prefer to call it that. Heaven, Elysium, Valhalla, Happy Hunting Grounds, it’s got tons of names, but those who reside here typically just refer to it as Here.” Minho looks up from his tablet finally, and Jisung is always surprised by how well he can hide that resting bitch face of his in front of SOL’s. “You came from There, but somehow didn’t end up Nowhere to be met by your Guide like you were supposed to,. But now you’re Here, so everything worked out just fine in the long run.” 

Minho speaks without taking a breath, but seeing as breathing isn’t that big of a thing around here, Jisung doesn’t think on it too much. 

Poor Felix however, looks absolutely lost. Which is why it’s time for Jisung to do his job. 

Shedding his coat, Jisung steps up so he’s standing beside Felix. 

The room they’re in resembles a doctors office almost, if only for the padded table Felix sits on as he huddles under the shock blanket. There’s no real equipment here like a real doctor's office would have, it’s mostly just meant to be a neutral space to speak with the now ex-SOL’s and answer questions if they had them. There’s some chairs and a table pushed off into the corner, but SOL’s don’t usually have people waiting for them to cross over. 

“It’s a lot, I know,” Jisung says in the most calming voice he can manage, sneaking glimpses (glares) at Minho every so often as his ‘Partner’ taps away on the computer across the room. “I’ve been here for six months now. It’s still a lot, but it gets easier. Not too different from the other place.”

Being alive. Jisung thinks, but doesn’t say. Because he doesn’t really know, does he.

Felix wraps the blanket around him tighter, lips pressed together as he nods and takes deep breaths. He doesn’t need to anymore, but Jisung knows even a little bit of normality can make a difference on whether someone flips their shit or not with this stuff.

“I’m dead, you’re dead,” Felix mumbles under his breath, eyes flickering over to Minho as he turns to face Jisung and Felix again. “You’re dead too.”

Jisung meets Minho’s gaze for barely a second, but Minho is looking away and back to his tablet all too quickly, and a hot spike of indignation shoots through Jisung. 

Jisung watches out of the corner of his eyes as Minho speaks to Felix, body language oddly amicable, as it always is when it comes to souls other than Jisung. But as soon as Minho turns to talk to Jisung his expression returns to its normal emotionless charm, barely glancing up to look at Jisung as Minho mutters under his breath, quiet so Felix can’t hear them. 

Minho’s fingers fly over the tablet in his grip as he types. 

“You didn’t ask him all the questions, I’ve told you about this before Han. You ask the questions and act as a non-threatening figure, and I do the logistics, is that too much to ask?”

“I asked him—”

“Two questions, not even three, that’s all you have to do! Honestly, a child could do your job, but that makes sense doesn’t it, seeing as I was saddled with you as a partner.”

With that Minho snaps the cover onto the tablet screen and turns back to Felix, Minho waving his hand in Jisung’s direction. A motion that Jisung has learned means_ “you did your job (just barely in my opinion), now get out and leave me alone to do_ mine_”._

Jisung wishes looks could kill, or more like Minho wasn’t already dead so Jisung could break the perfect fuckers nose and do some actual damage. 

“Here’s my card if you ever need anything Felix. I’ve got some more work to do, but Minho’s going to get you all set up with whatever you need, okay?” Jisung says as he shoulders his coat back on, sending a quick smile the boys way. “I promise it’ll all make sense eventually.”

“Oh, okay.” 

Jisung feels bad for leaving the boy, who looks so small wrapped up in the woolen blanket and fluffy blonde hair; but Jisung knows that Minho seems to find it easier to act kind with their recovered SOL’s when Jisung isn’t present, so he steps out of the room. 

Felix needs a friend right now, even if it’s Officer Fake Ass. 

  
  
  
  
  


As soon as he steps out of the ward, there’s a vague sense of the world folding in on itself, and Jisung finds himself in the entrance hall of his, Chan and Changbin’s shared apartment, hearing the faint nasally tone of Changbin nagging Chan and the smell of pizza wafting from the lounge around the corner. 

Jisung doesn’t know how he gets to the apartment, it’s just another strange quirk of Here. He can think of anywhere he wants to go, and he’ll find himself there. Of course the method of travel is monitored, and only certain people like Reapers are allowed to hop to different planes of existence, but overall it’s a skill every soul learns during their first few weeks Here.   
  
It takes the same skill to think up the clothes you want to wear during the day, to what music or song you want to hear through your headphones, and the decor in your bedroom. 

“Jisung! Just in time for Friday!” Chan grins when Jisung flops down on the couch in their living room, squished between Chan and Changbin but finding comfort in their proximity. 

Jisung loves almost everything about his job, but he can’t deny that it’s exhausting sometimes, and he loves being able to sink into the paradise he calls their couch, and shoving his face full of pizza he doesn’t need to eat, but boy does he enjoy it when he does. 

“How was work?”

“Don’t even get me started.”

“That bad, huh?”

“If you call Lee telling me I’m shit at my job ‘That bad’, then yeah.” Jisung huffs as he takes a piece of pizza, well past questioning how it could still taste like it was fresh out of the oven, or why as soon as he sinks into the couch the stiff collar of his dress shirt shifts and feels like something softer, maybe his favorite sweater even. The one that always seems to appear when he’s had a long day at work and just needs to spend some time with his roommates watching dumb movies and not thinking about Here and Now and Nothing and goddamn Lee Minho. 

“I’m sure things will get better soon, it’s an adjustment period—”

“—for him too. I know, you tell me all the time dude.”

Chan just rolls his eyes and ruffles Jisung’s hair before settling down and turning his attention to the movie playing on screen. 

At some point Jisung falls asleep on the couch, only waking up when Changbin carefully maneuvers Jisung onto his side and tucks him in with one of the blankets they leave on the back of the couch for situations just like this. And Jisung knows that if he spends the night on the couch he’s going to miss his alarm and be late for work, which means facing Minho’s wrath, but he’s comfortable enough that he can forget about it. 

Besides, it’s just paperwork tomorrow. Lots and lots of paperwork. 

Who said being dead was easy?

☽

**Author's Note:**

> Fuck lives
> 
> Comments/kudos appreciated


End file.
